Had no problems with my pond until my partner accidentally ripped the lining and we brought in a company to drain it refill it and patch it in October 2020. Immediately bought 4 oxygenating plants in October. Water looked clear. Frogs came in Feb-March so far no obvious problems. Still clear. Bought 3 new plants a month ago one marginal and 2 deep including water lily. A few weeks ago I thought there was a lot of bubbles on the water surface. Today more bubbles and noticed a thick brown slime covering my liner below the surface. There does seem to be some loose green algae strands too. I really don’t have a clue what I’ve done to cause this and how I can get rid of it. Please any thoughts!
After 30 years my pond has brown algae!
- Thread starter Pondy44
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Any time you disrupt the system, the biofilm on the underwater surfaces, you basically are starting over again, but now, with an established mature bioload. Do not feed much, add lots of plants, consider bog filtration, and time will help. Get some water lettuce or water lettuce as they reproduce fast. Protect them if your koi are mischievous or snackers.
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The drain and repair killed your original bio film, it’ll take time to re-establish. First step is just breathe. Keep an eye on water parameters if you have lots of fish, but it will give you a good idea of what’s going on. Adding more plants will help, and providing more water movement ( bubbler, fountain) might help move things along to where you can clean the film up that’s causing you to see the bubbles.
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Agree. New pond syndrome.
All the biofilm was killed off.
Add lots of plants and give it time.
All the biofilm was killed off.
Add lots of plants and give it time.
I would be using my pond vacuum to suck up as much of the Brown / dead film as I could. If it's not coming off easily then it is probably not completely dead look at it as a crop that gets no water for a period of time the plant will look sick edges are dead but the plant may not be dead just looks bad. You may have tge same issue.